This page describes some of the reported issues with the Word and OpenOffice/NeoOffice word processor plugins, together with possible solutions.

Citations and bibliographies generated by the word processor plugins might appear in a different style (font, font-size, etc) than the surrounding text. The appearance of the generated text can be changed by changing the default style. E.g. in OpenOffice, open the styles manager in 'Format' > 'Styles and Formatting' or by hitting F12. Right click on “Default”, select 'Modify', and make the desired changes to this style.

The Zotero word processor plugin will only work if you install the correct version. (Note that Zotero 2.0 uses a different plugin than Zotero 1.0.x, so after upgrading Zotero you will also need to upgrade your plugin.) If you try to use an incompatible version of the plugin, you will receive an error message similar to:

“This version of the Zotero Word Plugin (1.0b4) is incompatible with the currently installed version of the Zotero Firefox extension (2.0b7). Please ensure that you are using the latest versions of both components.”

To solve this problem, install the correct version of the plugin. If the problems persists after using the installer, remove the old version manually. For Windows Word, remove the plugin file “Zotero.dot” completely from your Word startup folder. For OpenOffice, remove the extension from the OpenOffice Extension Manager (and, if necessary, remove leftover files from the OpenOffice data directory, which may be necessary if OO fails to completely uninstall the extension). In either case, restart the word processor and ensure that the Zotero toolbar and all traces of the plugin are completely gone before attempting to reinstall.

If you are using Zotero 1.0, see the troubleshooting page for 1.0–compatible plugins.

If the Zotero toolbar (or Zotero scripts for Word 2008 for Mac) does not appear, close Word or OpenOffice and then, in Firefox, go to Tools→Add-ons→Extensions. (If you don't see “Zotero MacWord Integration,” “Zotero WinWord Integration,” or “Zotero OpenOffice Integration” in Tools→Add-ons→Extensions, install them.) Click the “Preferences” button next to “Zotero MacWord Integration,” “Zotero WinWord Integration,” or “Zotero OpenOffice Integration” (depending on your operating system and word processor), and then click “Reinstall Word Components” or “Reinstall OpenOffice Components” as appropriate.

In Word for Windows and Word 2004 for Mac, make sure that the Zotero toolbar is enabled in View→Toolbars. For Word for Windows, also ensure that Zotero.dot appears and is enabled in Word's Tools→Templates and Add-ins window.

Additional steps may be required for Word 2004 and Word 2008 on some systems.

“Zotero OpenOffice Integration was successfully installed, but it could not be initialized.”

“Firefox could not load the component required to communicate with your word processor.”

This error is usually caused by a non-functioning Java installation. You can check if Java is working here or here. If the applets on these sites fail to display, you'll need to get Java working before Zotero OpenOffice Integration can function. You should ensure that Java is enabled in the “Content” pane of the Firefox preferences. Windows users might also want to try reinstalling Java.

Under some circumstances, you may see the following message in Firefox when you attempt to insert a citation in Word:

“Firefox could not load the component required to communicate with your word processor.”

You may also repeatedly see the following message upon starting Firefox:

“The Zotero MacWord Integration installation succeeded, but a necessary component does not appear to be loaded properly.”

These errors are caused by an issue with PythonExt, which does not load a necessary Firefox component on some systems. Make sure Zotero MacWord Integration is up-to-date by clicking “Find Updates” in Tools→Add-ons→Extensions. We have updated the plug-in to automatically resolve many PythonExt issues. Additionally, if you have not already done so, you should install the latest version of PythonExt from zotero.org on the installation page. To upgrade from the official build of PythonExt, follow these instructions:

1. Open Tools→Add-ons→Extensions. Make sure that you have Zotero MacWord Integration 3.0a8 or later installed. If you don't, click the “Find Updates” button, restart Firefox, and return to Tools→Add-ons→Extensions.
2. Click the “Uninstall” button next to PythonExt.
3. Restart Firefox. You should get an error message stating that PythonExt is corrupted or incompletely deleted. Press OK to completely delete it.
4. Firefox will restart again. You will see an error message stating that Zotero MacWord Integration requires PythonExt. Ignore it.
5. Download the updated version of PythonExt from the installation page.

At this point, we believe that we've traced the causes of all PythonExt issues. If you are up-to-date and are still experiencing the above issues, you should post with a Report ID on the forums.

If you getting no response when you attempt to use the Word plugin, try the following steps:

1. Restart Word and try again.
2. Close Word and go to Tools→Add-ons→Extensions in Firefox. Make sure Zotero MacWord Integration plugin is listed and enabled. If not, reinstall it. If so, click its Preferences button and click Reinstall Word Components. Restart Word and try again.

After installing the latest Word plugin for Zotero 2.0 on a system with a non-English version of Office 2004 for Mac installed or with a non-admin OS X user account, the toolbar may not appear in Word. Alternatively, after upgrading to the latest plugin version, you may receive the following message:

“This version of the Zotero word processor plugin (3.0a8) is incompatible with the currently installed version of the Zotero Firefox extension (2.0rc5)”

This indicates that the new template was not installed into the correct location for your installation. By default, Zotero installs the template into /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Office/Startup/Word.

If you have a non-English version of Office, you may need to move the Zotero.dot file into the “Word” directory within the equivalent of “Startup” in your language and restart Word.

If you're using a non-admin OS X user account, you will need to install the Word plugin from an administrative account or grant write access for the startup directory to the non-admin account to allow it to install Zotero.dot.

To grant write access, navigate to /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Office/Startup in Finder, select the Word folder, and select File→Get Info. Click the small lock icon in the bottom-right corner of the Info window and authenticate as an administrator. Then press the ”+” button, add the non-admin user to the list, and make sure Privilege is set to Read & Write. In Firefox, go to Tools→Add-ons→Extensions, click the “Preferences” button next to “Zotero MacWord Integration”, and click “Reinstall Word Components”. You can then optionally remove the non-admin account from the privilege list of the Word folder, though plugin upgrades may require you to repeat the same process.

After installing the latest Word plugin for Zotero 2.0 on a system with a non-English version of Office 2008 for Mac installed, the plugin scripts may not appear in Word. Alternatively, after upgrading to the latest plugin version, you may receive the following message:

“This version of the Zotero word processor plugin (3.0a8) is incompatible with the currently installed version of the Zotero Firefox extension (2.0rc5)”

This error indicates that the new scripts were not installed into the correct location. By default, Zotero installs the scripts into ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data if the folder exists or asks where to install them if it does not. Since non-English versions of Office do not use the Microsoft User Data folder, but rather a folder with an equivalent name in the Office language, this can be problematic for non-English Office users. There are two potential solutions:

1. If you have only a non-English versions of Office installed, you may delete the Microsoft User Data folder if it contains nothing other than the Zotero scripts. You may then re-install the Zotero scripts by going to Tools→Add-ons→Extensions, clicking the “Preferences” button next to Zotero MacWord Integration, and clicking the “Reinstall Word Components” button.
2. If you have both English and non-English versions of Office installed, you should copy the Zotero folder from ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Word Script Menu Items to the equivalent folder for your non-English version of Office. You can find the correct directory by selecting “About This Menu…” (or non-English equivalent) from the script menu and clicking “Open Folder”.

Java issues can sometimes cause the OpenOffice plugin to crash Firefox on startup on OS X when Java extensions have been installed into ~/Library/Java/Extensions or /Library/Java/Extensions. This issue is not Zotero-specific and applies to Java applets as well. The only known solution is to remove the problematic extension. Users without other Java applications installed may safely clear the contents of these two directories. See this thread on the Mozilla forum for more details.

“Word could not communicate with Zotero. Please ensure Firefox is running and try again.”

1. If you use ZoneAlaram, disable ForceField, which is known to cause a communication error.
2. Windows plug-ins communicate with Firefox using the remote window. Thus, launching Firefox with the -no-remote command-line option will prevent the plug-ins from functioning. (You might do this if you have multiple Firefox profiles.) The solution is to remove the -no-remote command-line option from the shortcut used to launch the Firefox profile on which Zotero is installed. As long as all other profiles use the -no-remote option, you should be able to open them and the Zotero profile simultaneously.

During initial installation, or after triggering the “Reinstall OpenOffice Components” command as above, you see a select folder dialog with the title:

“Select the OpenOffice installation directory”

This directory typically contains a “basis-link” directory and/or a “program” directory. By default, the installer looks in the following locations:

/usr/local/opt/openoffice.org3.1
/opt/openoffice.org3.1
/usr/lib64/ooo3
/usr/lib/ooo3
/usr/lib64/openoffice.org3
/usr/lib/openoffice.org3

On many distributions, you can type “locate soffice” at the terminal to find the soffice executable, which is usually located inside the “program” directory in the installation directory. If the locate command does not work, try “find / -name soffice 2>/dev/null”, although this will take significantly longer to execute.

If you see a select folder dialog with the title:

“Select the directory containing the soffice executable”

then you can follow the instructions immediately above to find the soffice executable.

If you see a select folder dialog with the title:

“Select the directory containing the URE JAR files”

then you can use “locate ridl.jar” or “find / -name ridl.jar 2>/dev/null” to find the ridl.jar file. Select the parent directory in the dialog.

You may also specify these paths in the Preferences window for the Zotero OpenOffice Integration extension, but they must contain a trailing slash.

If you can insert citations into new documents but receive an error in an existing document, follow these steps to find the cause of the error:

1. Try copying and pasting the document content into a new document to see if the problem goes away.
2. Make sure the Track Changes feature in Word/OpenOffice is disabled, as it is known to cause problems with Zotero integration.
3. Make a copy of your document—by duplicating the file itself, not by copying and pasting the content—to use for debugging.
4. Open the copied file and check if you get the error after switching to a different bibliography style.
5. If the document has a bibliography, delete it and check if you still get the error.
6. Check if “Report Errors…” in the Zotero Actions menu () is active and if new errors appear after attempting to insert a citation. If so, send in an error report and post the provided Report ID to the forums.
7. Try to isolate the problematic citation. Delete half of the document at a time and see if the error still occurs. If not, use Undo to restore the deleted section and then try deleting the other half. If you can reproduce the error in only one of the halves, repeat the halving process on the remaining section. Continue this until you find the problematic citation. Remove that citation from the original document and the problem should go away (unless there are multiple problematic citations, in which case you'll have to repeat the process). If you are able to find a problematic citation, you should also send that document excerpt to support@zot….org so we can take a look at it. For all other discussion, please post to the forums.
8. While debugging, if you are using Fields mode in Word or Reference Marks mode in OpenOffice, it may help to display field codes rather than formatted text. To do this in Word, press Alt-F9 on Windows or Option-F9 on OS X. In OpenOffice, press Control-F9.